Space Oddity: Episode II Rebirth
by Observer123
Summary: Dudley is back! Really? Yes! But the really interesting question is: Where is he? He has no idea. The only thing he know is that he is far far away from home and that he has to find a way back. But to find a way back he has to come to terms with these strange alien creatures who call themselves humans.
1. Rebirth

**-Hey everyone, I´m back with Space Oddity. As I said, I can´t let it end with Dudley´s death... also this wasn´t planned. Well, before I annoy you too much here is the chapter.-**

Everyday life. That sounds somehow awful, doesn´t it? That sounds like monotony, boredom. Like the repeating of a really bad song. And you are forced to listen to that. Every day. Until you´re dead. But the really nasty thing about this routine is that it gets you sooner or later no matter how hard you try to avoid it.

I remember back then, as this all began, I was in this treadmill too. I had the disgusting taste of routine in my mouth which I couldn´t got rid of by brushing my teeth.  
It was 8am I think, even if I´m not sure because it´s hard to identify the correct time onboard a spaceship, and I woke up on my desk in my quarter after a night that was just too short.

I lifted my heavy head up and saw that I sobbed on all my papers again. It was interesting that my body could lose so much fluid without dehydrating. Cursing I scratched the mixture of paper and spit of the table and threw it on the ground. The cleaning bots would remove that. And I was right.

Not a second later small bug-like creatures, approximately as big as a cockroach, crawled out of an opening in the wall and pounced on spit-papier-mâché. It took them less than a second to eat the trash on the ground and go back to the place they came from. Always a nice view, even if it led to a quite stupid trend. Everybody threw their garbage on the ground.

Usually I tried to counteract against this trend by using the little garbage can beside my desk but today I was in the mood to see these little bugs again. I slept bad and I somehow felt that this day wouldn't get any better. So I fought down the uprising depressing thoughts I stood up from my chair and stretched a little before I called to the ceiling "Computer, time."

A protracted sigh came as return from above before a computer voice snarled back. "Seriously Isaac, would it kill you to say please? Or at least say my name right? The society is really perishing slowly, do you know why? Because the humans forgot how to be polite…"

Desperately I laid my hands on my face and tried to fade out the speech of the computer. Always the same and somehow also part of my everyday life. Even if avoiding this speech would be so easy. I´d just had to say 'Mike, what´s the time?' But I didn´t, and a voice inside of me slowly asked why as the length of the computers speech became longer. "…but for you I´m just a better calculator, right? Just a machine, no soul, no feelings. So nothing you have to treat with respect…"

"Are you done, Mike?" I asked bored.  
"NO I´M NOT DONE…"  
"Computer, deactivate emotion routine beta four!"  
"No you won´t d…" Mike´s voice suddenly became dull and mechanical. "Routine beta four deactivate."

"Finally" I thought and repeated. "Computer, time."  
"It´s 6am, Doctor."  
"Thank you." I said contentedly and left my room. It was 6am, time to show my face on the bridge so that the people on board don´t think that I´m just sitting lazy in my quarter.

Even if it was just what I did. But how should I work without any scientific significant data? Exactly, that´s impossible. Even if we reached a singularity on that day which we wanted to analyze, the actual purpose of this journey, I didn´t expect much of it.

We already seen ten of them and discovered nothing special. If someone told me back then that eleven was my lucky number I had definitely laughed this person down. Or, in a retrospective on the mood I was in on that day, slapped that person. But that´s unimportant right now.

I made my way to the bridge slowly, mainly because I gave everyone I met on my way a long angry stare. I really wondered back then why most people didn´t like me. Now I know, that doing things like that was one reason. But on this day I didn´t really care about that anyway.

I finally stood after about ten minutes I spend staring on the flawlessly white shining hallways on the bridge. A wide room in which especially two colors dominated. The shining white color, that was already present on the hallway, and a soft blue which came from all the devices.

What also strikes you when you enter the bridge for the first time is the shape of the room itself. A big white oval dome. Imagine a boiled egg, cut it in half and then you have the exact shape of that room. On the floor of the room you would probably recognize the four round holes which were arranged like a star.

One in the middle and the other three around that. In these holes the bridge staff was sitting in front of all sorts of panels, displays and devices. From these holes by the way came the blue light.  
Every member of the command personal had his own hole they called cockpits.

The captain of the ship sat in the one in the middle. In front of him sat the navigator, the one who steered the ship. On the captain´s left side sat the security officer, responsible for everything concerning security and weaponry. And last but not least the cockpit of the scientific advisor, my job.

A job with responsibilities, especially when the ships on an explorative mission. I´m in charge for the whole mission, decide where we go and I´m also allowed to give the captain a direct order, but just if it´s concerning the mission. But to be honest, usually I just sit around and wait until something happens.

With the inner certainty that this would happen today I jumped into my cockpit. Immediately as I sat down a window on the holographic screen popped up and I looked into the angular face of the captain.

"So you finally honor us with your presence here?" he and opened his big jaw to laugh loudly.  
"Good morning Powers." I said as friendly as I could with my bad mood. In a contrary to most of the other people on this ship I liked Captain Powers.

He was the only one who was willing to participate in this mission as I presented the council my plans. He even offered me using his ship, the Leviathan. An offer I´ve accepted, of course. The Leviathan wasn´t any ship and it was a great honor to be part of its crew.

The adventures that this ship had were legendary. This ship was there as the Cekirge-epidemic broke out. An incident that still threatens the whole universe. The Leviathan led the shock troop that was responsible for the victory in the Antigone sector against the League. Pushed the Union back on their conquering expedition and many other things. Of course Captain Sly Powers wasn´t alone, he had much help. To quote him '_I would be nothing without my crew._'

That was true, especially three members of his crew were important for what he has achieved. Meliha his chief engineer. A tech-geek who already repaired plasma cannons in the age of six. Alexandra Casey a dishonorable discharged ex-union agent with an itchy trigger finger.

And his navigator, John Meternagel. Who _'isn´t describable with words and not bearable without alcohol.'_ To quote the captain again.  
"Good morning Isaac." Replied Powers now sounding more sternly. "Just to give you a backup, we´ll reach the singularity soon…"

Another window suddenly popped up next to the one in which I saw powers face with the smooth long face of Meternagel in it. "Fifteen minutes to be precisely."  
"GOD DAMMIT METERNAGEL I HAVEN`T ASKED YOU!" screamed Powers so loud that I was able to hear it without the help of the speakers.

Meternagel shook his head so hard because of laughter that even his black short hair shook along. "Hehehe, Like I´m waiting for your permission Captain." And like the window popped up it disappeared again.

"Oh god I need Whiskey… or pure ethanol."  
"That could be your death." I giggled amused by this little example for a standard conversation between them.

"And he will be my death… I can live with the subjunctive." Powers sight exhausted. "Anyway, as you just heard we are almost there get ready."  
"I hope we will find something there."

"You don´t sound very hopeful." He referred to my despondent tone of voice.  
"Well, I am slowly losing hope. You have to know if my theory is right we had to find the parts of the probes in at least one of the first singularities."

"Hmm… Let´s see." Meant Powers encouraging me. "Maybe eleven is your lucky number."  
"Maybe…" I mumbled as the window with powers face closed again.  
I finally started to work. Lost in my dark thoughts I hacked on the panel in front of me.

The procedure was just a succession of trivial standard commands. Just a tachyon-mater-carrier-wave, nothing special. Bored I pushed the button that fired the concentrated ray of particles into the anomaly we have reached. The computer received the data, calculate for a moment and provided me exactly with the result foresaw. Nothing.

Angry I pushed myself away from the panel and began to punch with my fist on the white wall next to me. Again and again. Until warm blood dropped down from my ravaged hand.  
"Damn… damn damn da…" I was about to ill-treat my other hand the same way as I almost oversaw a small flashing exclamation mark in the lower left corner of my screen.

That couldn´t be true. My heart stopped while my finger glided slowly towards the icon. My mouth became dry, my sight blurry, my ears numb. It felt for a short moment like I was going to die. But as the massage popped up in its full length on the screen the life shot back into my body. More than that, it felt like the time moved faster around me.

Well, it had to be like that because the Captain suddenly appeared on the screen and asked. "Hey, Doc. I haven´t heard anything of you for an hour, everything alright?"  
"Y..Y..Yes. Yes! Please, Captain, gather all officers in the officer´s mess. I have important news."  
"So you found something? Okay, I meet you there." Power´s voice fell silent again.

And I stared still unbelieving at the data in front of me. I didn´t knew what it was, but definitely not one of our probes. It was something strange, something else, something what we have never seen before. I entered a few last commands into the computer then I left my cockpit and made my way fast to the officer´s mess.

It seemed that I have stared at the data a pretty long time after powers called me, because all officers were already gathered in there. Also Doctor Ryan, the ship´s doctor, who was actually the scientific advisor. The fact that I occupied his position, even if it was just temporary, didn´t make him liking me.

"So, Issac?" Powers tapped impatiently with his finger on the big table in the center of the room.  
"Okay first of all." I began with a big smile. "We received scientific significant data out of the singularity." I expected that the crew around me would begin to cheer or applaud or at least change their expressions from angry to a pleased one. But that didn´t happen. No one reacted. Well, no one except Meternagel. The Navigator pulled a sparkler out of his uniform and began to wave it while he sang "We did it YEAAAAH! In your face science! In your face! In your …"

Fortunately the distressed gaze that he received from his captain cut him short. "Meternagel… what´s wrong with you?" Powers shook his head a bit worried and a bit in disbelieve.  
"Uhm… come on Captain. If you have something to celebrate you have to celebrate it as long as you´re able to celebrate it."

Sly looked like he wanted reply to that but instead of risking an hour long debate with a madman he just sighed and turned back to me.  
"Okaaay…" I meant also a bit confused. "Anyway… as I said, I received data. But not the data we were supposed to receive. I received something completely different. Something I have never seen before."

"Don´t keep us on tenterhooks! Spit it out!" Called Doctor Ryan annoyed in.  
"Okay, okay… Geez, the people are so impatient." I mumbled quietly.  
"Isaac, I´m sick of waiting too. Spit it out!" consented the captain with the doctor.

"Fine, whatever you want. Where was I? Yes, something different. Instead of the matter signature of one of the probes I found this…" I turned around and pushed on a file on the big screen behind me. "An unknown spaceship."  
Now the officers and the captain in front of me reacted like I expected them to react a few minutes earlier. Everyone stared shocked at the data on the screen and at the animation of the arrow head shaped ship.

"Wow…" gasped Powers which was the only thing I heard after a five minute long break which was filled with complete silence.  
"Could… Could it not just one of our ships which was dragged into the singularity a long time ago?" asked Meternagel who still had problems to close his mouth.

"I thought so too first. But I know no ship that looks like that. Even if I still compare the data of it with every other ship in our database, I think we have to do with something different."  
"That´s all well and good but have you already reconstructed the matter or have you just gathered us with a computer animation?" growled Ryan.

"Of course not. The matter reconstruct procedure had already begun. I also ordered a group of research assistant down to cargo hold B. They will examine the ship there." I turned my back to my audience and search on the screen for the buttons to activate the video link between us and the cargo hold.

"Hey… captain, I just realized that there are no cameras in the cargo hold… Why are there no cameras?!"  
But instead of the Captain answered Meternagel my question. "What happens in the cargo hold stays in the cargo hold. That´s why."

I must stared pretty confused at Meternagel for quite a time because after a while Powers said. "Don´t look like that, that´s really the reason."  
"But that is… that is" I took a deep breath and tried not to start a pointless conversation about that.

"Anyway, then this is going to be a radio play." I activated the voice communication and called "Science team can you hear me?"  
"Yes." It return fast from the speakers which were spread all over the officer´s mess. "We´re entering the cargo hold right now."

"Good tells us what you see." I ordered.  
"Well there is a small ship, I think it could be a one person fighting ship… Wait no. I can´t see any weapons so forget it… The ship itself looks pretty much like a big triangle. Also the hull seemed to be heavily damaged. Seems like little projectiles hit it… Give us a sec, Doc, we´re searching for an entrance."

What followed was babble of voices and the sound of fists that knocked against metal. Until the noise of a hydraulic ramp, what was probably the sound of the entrance hatch, was heard.

"Doc, we found it. Entering now… Okay… we are in some kind of ante-room or something… As already mentioned the ship is damaged, the inner is no exception… Okay, we can go left to the Cockpit or right to the engine room. Doc, where should we go?"  
I thought for a second and called then. "Go left and tap the computer of the ship. We need the data."

"Alright… we´re opening the door…" Suddenly it became really quiet. First I thought they would just need the time to understand the computer system and to extract the data. But you would at least her something then. What came from the speakers was total silence.

"Guys?" I meant worried.  
"There is someone…"  
"What?!" I asked perplex.

"Yeah… it..it looks like a big dog… I´ve never seen something like that… Dammit… Poor thing. It´s wounded... It looks like it is dead."  
"A big dog?! What are you talking about?!" I thought they either tried to pull my leg or that they were on a drug trip.

"Oh my god, Doctor… Doctor!" the leader of the team suddenly screamed.  
"What?!"  
"It´s breathing! It´s alive!"

**-That was the first chapter. And as you realized we see our old friend/fiend Isaac again (You can also call him Sam or Advisor if you want). The story will also be a about the universe before the anthropomorphic animal universe. Anyway, I hope you liked it. If you liked it, leave me a review. And I try to publish the next as soon as possible.-**


	2. New friends

**-Hey guys, what´s up? It´s Monday and here is a new chapter. Enjoy :D-**

"So what´s going on now? Is it an alien or just a dog on steroids?" probed Captain Powers loudly behind me. We all were gathered around a bed in which the white furred dog alien laid. It wore some kind of primitive space suit that was really heavily damaged. What we also discovered on the dogs body was that his left hand had a big hole in it, serious freezing damages and that some of his fingers on this hand were missing. But luckily Doctor Ryan was able to repair all the damages.

Just an hour has passed since we rescued the lifeless body into the sickbay of the Leviathan. Almost the whole crew gathered behind Doctor Ryan who examined the alien now once again.

"We will see when he awakes." I replied nervously. Even if that sounds strange, that was our first alien encounter ever. Mankind began 8000 years ago to spread in space. First in their own solar system, then in their galaxy, then in their galaxy cluster… to make that short, the humans spread over the whole universe.

From side to side. And we found absolutely nothing out there. What proofed that we are really alone out there, at least on this level of existence. So the discovery of an alien was not just a big deal, it would be the greatest scientific discovery of the last thousand years.

I rubbed my hands and saw in front of my mind´s eye myself standing with a Nobel Prize in my hands. I even began to plan my speech of thanks. 'I´d like to thank everyone who helped me on my way… So basically just myself.'

The problem was just that if this dog thing, or whatever it was, didn´t wake up again there would be no Nobel Prize for me. The only thing I would have were about 150 pounds of dog meat.  
"Ryan, speak with me. How is it or he… or she?"

"Isaac I can´t work when you pissing me off." Mumbled Ryan and grabbed a long thin sharp metal probe. With a vicious grin he rammed it into the dog´s skull. The whole auditory behind Ryan inclusively me winced in disgust. Ryan was really more a butcher than a doctor. I even heard that he once amputated the leg of a patient by mistake.

The only thing he allegedly said was "False leg? Well Sir, bad luck."  
Like a psychopathic serial killer began Ryan to pull the probe out of the skull and hit it back into it.  
"Got dammit Ryan what are you doing?" I screamed.

"Installing several implants. What do you think?" Meant Ryan casually.  
"And why are you not using the Fentobots?! For installing them?"  
"Why should I? This thing is still comatose! I don´t think it feels something right now… We don´t even know if it can feel." I had to admit, that Ryan was right in that moment.

Usually we used tiny robots to integrate implants into a brain. But if you are a doctor with a butcher´s attitude and the patient is comatose it really doesn´t make a difference. So we watch the Doctor a few more minutes stabbing the dog´s skull until Ryan finally put the probe a bit disappointed away and pinned the little device on its head which should fix the holes.

"When will he wake up?" called Meternagel from the crowd.  
"Five minutes… if he makes it. Oh and about that, if he wakes up I don´t want the whole ship standing here staring at him."  
"You will not get me out of here." I protested with a tone of voice that sounded like I was ready to chain myself on the alien.

"No, not you, you are the scientific advisor." Meant Ryan disparagingly. "You´ll talk to him. But the rest of you. Piss off."  
"So you want to give ME an order, Mr. Ryan? Yeah sure." Captain Powers laughed loudly.

"Okay, you two can stay here but…"  
"What about me?!" shouted Meternagel.  
"NOT YOU!" Powers and Ryan screamed at him in unison.

"Oh come on…" With his hands in his pocket Meternagel walked disappointed away and the crowd followed him.  
"Okay." I said as more privacy came into the room. "When it wakes up, please let me talk to it. It will be confused and maybe overwhelmed by all of this… I mean we were overwhelmed too, right? So please let me handle this, okay?"

I received nods of them two as signs of acceptance for my suggestion. Now we all just had to wait. Even if five minutes doesn´t seem like a long time interval it felt like an eternity until the dog moved. First just its toes. They twitched like someone was just tickling him. Then the muscles in his thighs.

And after that it took just a few seconds before he opened his eyes for the first time.  
Slowly and with the expression of a grandfather with back problems he brought his upper body in an upright position. With its half-asleep eyes it gazed around, probably it first recognizes silhouettes but then suddenly it crawled shocked to the wall on which the bed was attached to. It seemed that it recognized us.

With widened eyes it scanned us in fear and barked some totally indistinct words.  
"Uhm… we…" I was cut short by a loud voice that came from one of the implants in my head. "UNIVERSAL TRANSLATION COMPUTER RECOGNIZED NEW LAGUAGE."  
The dog must have heard that sentence from his implant too -probably everyone in the room had- because it started barking even louder.

"UNIVERSAL TRANSLATION COMPUTER LEARNS NEW LANGUAGE."  
Again the dog barked but this time some understandable words flashed up in his speech. I understood something like "What" and "Here" before the voice drowned every other voice a last time.

"UNIVERSAL TRANSLATION COMPUTER LEARNED NEW LANGUAGE."  
"WHO SAID THAT?! WHAT IS THIS HERE?! WHAT ARE YOU?!"  
"We should have reached linguistic compatibility now." I said friendly and tried to hide my excitement. "May I introduce myself, My name is Isaac… yeah… just Isaac. And I am currently the scientific advisor of the spaceship Leviathan on which you are right now. I am sure you have a lot of questions and I will answer all of them and…"

"WHAT ARE YOU?!" screamed the dog interrupting me.  
"Uhm… Okay… straight to the point…" I laughed a bit confused because that was a speech I had from a really old movie. I´m a great movie-fan and I especially like movies from the years 2000 to 3500. Exactly from one of these movies I tried to copy my speech to the alien, but in none of these movies the receiver of this speech has ever interrupted the holder.

"Uhm…hehe…okay. We call us selves humans and as already mentioned you are on board of the Leviathan, a spaceship. Can you follow me?"  
The dog still pressed his body fearful at the wall in his fruitless attempt to back away from me. I gave him a bit time to grasp the whole situation.

After a few minutes it seemed that the dog slowly calmed down. "I..I think yes. So you´re aliens?!"  
"Well, that depends on the point of view. For us, you are the alien." A confused and really distressed seeming style flitted over the dogs face.  
"And what was this voice?"

"Well, as we rescued you from the singularity you have been unconsciousness for a while. So we used this time to install a few implants into your brain. Including an adaptive module that can translate every known and unknown language… Well, of course just if it´s spoken. You still can´t read anything we have written. This voice you heard in your head came from that module." I explained calmly and friendly what was actually not my usual way of explaining.

"Okay… okay" panted the dog calming himself down.  
"Please calm down. We are not trying to harm you. That would not even make sense."  
The dog finally made a step away from the wall towards me but still had some kind of defensive behavior.

Glad that he settled down a bit I offered him, with a smile, my hand to shake it. That was maybe a bit too quick for him because he jumped back to the wall. "Oh sorry." I meant. "That is an old greeting-custom from earth. From a long time ago, to show each other that we are unarmed we show each other our hands hand then shake them."

The dog stared at my hand in fear but then courage seem to rise in him because he stepped towards me and grabbed my hand. I don´t know if it was my short explanations about the hand-shake that made him doing this but in the end that doesn´t matter for me.

"Nice to meet you." I beamed. "Again, my name is Isaac. But I think I haven´t heard your name yet. What is your name?"  
"My name is… uhm… Dudley. Yes. My name is Dudley…Puppy. Dudley Puppy."  
"You have problems to remember?"

"Yes. Somehow…" admitted Dudley.  
"Oh… well. I think we should make some test with you about that. Doctor Ryan!" I called to the doctor. "Prepare a complete brain scan. Oh and take a closer look at his prefrontal cortex."

"Don´t tell me how to do my job!" shouted Ryan back in his usual 'be like that' way.  
"Thank you." I replied not willing to get worked up about him. "Dudley, would you follow me? I would like to show you around."

"Is it a long way?" asked the dog pressing his hand against his forehead. "I´m somehow really really tired."  
"No" I laughed. "The first station of our tour is here. I would like to introduce you to the captain of the ship. Captain Sly Powers."

With a friendly grin Powers stepped towards Dudley and shook his hand. "You can call me Magnum."  
"Magnum?" probed Dudley confused.  
"Yeah, it´s kind of a nickname."

"One of those nicknames that will never establish itself." I sneered.  
"You´ll see!" replied Powers confident. "In about… let´s say 20 years from now everyone will call me that."  
"Anyway, next one is our doctor. Doctor Ryan." Instead of shaking hand Ryan greeted Dudley just with a nod that was full of aversion.

"Yeah, don´t care about him." I commented the nod and added whispering. "The people don´t really like him… okay they don´t like me too but compared with him I´m a popstar."  
"Okay…" said Dudley with an expression that the whole situation was just too much for him. But who wouldn´t be confused by such a situation?

With a gesture I asked him to follow me. We walked out of the sick bay and directly into the crowded floor in which the whole crew waited to see the alien. If already a small room with three humans in it overwhelmed Dudley, how overwhelming would a small room with about a hundred humans would be?

And I could already see that Dudley began to panic again. Luckily captain Powers intervened with his loud voice in this situation before it escalated.  
"Everyone, back to your posts! I can´t remember that I ordered a general break!"  
Disappointed and annoyed the crew made their way back to their posts.

"Thanks captain." I said to Powers.  
"Hey, no problem. We have a guest on board and I try to make his voyage here as comfortable as possible." Sly laughed loudly and patted Dudley on the shoulder even if you could actually call his patting, punching. "Anyway, I talk about working and stand here lazily. I will go to the bridge. If you have a wish Mr. Puppy, don´t hesitate to ask me." And with these words the captain headed off to his workplace.

"He is a nice guy." Meant Dudley as we continued walking over the now empty hallways.  
"Yeah, kind of. You should see him arguing with Meternagel… that would change your opinion about him."  
"What is a Meternagel?"  
"Oh… that´s not so important right now." I smirked.

For a whole while we walked on in silence until we reached the door of the room we organized for our visitor. A guest´s cabin which was usually used in cases a guest was on board… so actually exactly this case. I pressed a button on a panel beside the door to open it.

"Okay, Dudley. Operating the doors actually is pretty easy. To be honest, operating every device in your room is pretty easy. Either it just does what it has to when you push the button on it or it does what it has to when you push the button on it and say what it should do." I walked into the room to a small opening in the wall beside which also a panel was attached to. I pressed the button and said. "Computer, coffee!"

"Uhm… how about no?" a voice from the ceiling answered me.  
"Oh yeah right, I forgot." I meant rubbing the ridge of my nose annoyed. "I just switched off your emotion routine in my room…"

"Hell yes!" the computer shouted. "No coffee for you."  
"I´m sorry, Dudley. That is our board computer system, called Mike, and… let´s say it´s a bit emotionally unstable."

"EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE?!" it echoed from the speakers.  
"Okay, enough! Computer. Deactivate!" I shouted back angrily. "That should stop this for a while. I´ll reactivate it when I´m out of this room… And have a conversation with it… I think I have to apologize."

"That was really a computer?" asked Dudley wondering. "I reacted so real."  
"Yes. We are testing a new kind of emotion routine here… as you see it´s unstable. But nothing that I couldn´t fix. Anyway…" I began changing the subject. "You still cannot remember much, right?"

"Yes… You know I feel that there is something but I can´t get access to the memory… that makes my head hurt."  
"Hey, no need to worry. I was wounded in the big war, I think 500 years ago, and also lost my memory for a while. Believe me it comes back… Well, most of it."

"Good to hear… wait 500 years ago?!" asked Dudley perplex. "How old are you?!"  
"Well, a month ago was my 3220th birthday."  
"3220?!"

"Yes…" I confirmed now also a bit confused. "My species gets sometimes almost 15,000 years old… A special medicament and permanent genetic mutations are the reasons I think. But why do you ask? How old get people from your species?"

"80, sometimes 100 years."  
"Just 80 years?!" I asked shocked. "That´s the time I spent in school!"  
"You were in school for 80 years?!" Dudley now also asked shocked.

"Yes! That is the standard time you go to school here. Except you go to the academy after that, then you can add five years to the 80."  
"Wow… that´s pretty long."  
"If you can life over 10,000 years 80 years are not so much. By the way… we gave you that medicament too. I do not know if this was your wish but it was our only choice to deal with the serve injuries you had."

"There is nothing to say against some extra years I think… so I´ll can reach the 10,000 years mark too?" Dudley didn´t seem to be upset about the fact that we actually tested a medicament developed for humans on his species for the first time.

"I don´t think so…" I admitted. "But 5,000 should be easily reachable for you."  
"Awesome."  
"Yes… awesome." I replied slowly. "Anyway, if you remember anything about what happened before… Don´t hesitate to call me. To call me just push the button next to your bed and say 'call Isaac'. Okay… I think that´s all. You have an appointment at the sick bay in about 12 hours so, get some sleep." I saluted nonchalantly toward him and left the room then.

Happy about the new discovery and the possible Nobel Prize I would get for that I danced like a drunken guy in the disco over the hallways.  
But while I was lively and happy Dudley lay in his bad and tried desperately to remember what happened before he awoke in the sick bay of the Leviathan.

But if he tried to remember it was like there was some kind of barricade in his mind. It felt like he stood in front of a looked door and he was missing the key. However, there was something that he remembered. A name… Kitty or something like that. But he had no idea who that was or how this person was connected to him.  
"I should sleep a bit… maybe that helps."


	3. Remember remember

"Mike please…" I begged kneeling in front of the wall in my room. "We talked now 16 hours about that and I promise you to treat you like a crew member now, but please… Please! Can we end this conversation now?"

"No!" the stern and intransigent voice from the ceiling echoed like a cruel joke told by a nasty jester through my thousand tons heavy head. "I want to discuss this. Why did you assume that I´m not a real part of this crew?"

"Here it goes again." I sighed. "I am sorry that I said that, really really sorry. You are a real and valuable crew member. Please just open the doors now and let me go."  
"Nope." replied Mike in a way that sounded almost derisive.

"Please! I do everything…"  
"Everything you say… I have an idea."  
That sounded more than weird, hoping that Mike didn´t mean that what my dirty mind thought about I asked. "And… what?"

"I want you… wait, what do you thought what I thought?"  
"Well… this sentence sounds always like sexual harassment so…"  
"Oh dammit Isaac!" Shouted the computer realizing what I meant. "Get your dirty mind out of the dirty gutter and into a cleaner surrounding!"

"I will, but tell me what you want now!"  
"I want the controls about the activation of my emotion routines and the FDU should be online all the time."  
"You can´t put that idea right out of your mind, Mike." What he demanded was maybe not impossible, but it was something I personally not wanted to do.

The computer was almost almighty on this ship. When its FDU, free decision unit, was on it could decide on its own authority what every device on this ship should do. There were of course important functions of the ship that Mike couldn´t control but as I mentioned he is almost almighty. And I wasn´t willing to create an emotionally unstable demigod.

"I know that you can do it! And if you want to get out of this room I would think about my suggestions."  
I wanted to say something, threat him, reason with him or even beg him but a loud noise coming from my stomach prevented me from any further attempts.

"Oh… it seems like someone is hungry."  
"No that was just a malfunction… of some intern… uhm…"  
"Seems like you missing something in your stomach so that your brain has enough energy to think properly again, or am I mistaken?"

"No I… I can make it much longer without food." I protested.  
"Maybe… but no matter how long you can stand the absence of food, I can double the time keeping the doors closed."  
I tried in that moment not to listen to the quiet voice in my head that tried to talk the consequences of that nice. And I especially not tried to listen to this damn loud noise that reminded me of every dinner I ever had.

I knew that I couldn´t stand this torture any longer. I had to decisions now. The first was giving in to Mike´s demands and do what he wants, the second was banging my head against the edge of the table nearby. If I fall unconsciousness he would be forced to alarm someone who would bring me to the sick bay.

Mike was programmed to save lifes so he had to do that. Otherwise, I needed my head for working as a scientist. So that was ruled out, but I wouldn´t gave in to his demands too… at least not completely. "Fine…" I growled. "But only if I´m allowed to enlarge your FDU emergency shutdown routine. And I won´t trade about that."

"You can put that idea right out your head Isaac! I mean do you really think I let you just tinker with this important routine?"  
"I won´t trade!" I replied defiantly.  
"Yeah, me too! The doors stay closed."

"Okay, whatever." I meant shrugging and stood up from my kneeling position just to kneel down in front of the table nearby again. I had no other choice risk my head  
"Don´t dare doing that Isaac!" shouted Mike realizing what I was up to.

"Then don´t make me do this!" slowly I leaned my head back ready to swing it hard against the table. And that would have happened if Mike hadn´t screamed these releasing words "Okay, I give in!"  
I braked my head so close to the edge that I could almost kiss it.

"Then open the door."  
"Okay okay… but we have a deal." Asked Mike so unsure that I had almost forgot that I speak with a computer, an actually determined machine.  
"Of course. You don´t make me crack my skull and I will give you the controls and edit the emergency routine. Now open the doors!"

"As you wish."  
A bit shaky but feeling released I stood up and walked through the door. It felt good not to be a hostage of this demigod anymore. I don´t want to go so far to say that this felt like getting my life back, because actually the threat wasn´t so big, but again I realized what a great gift life was.

And again I started hatting my job. It´s hard to be the only scientist in the whole alliance that develops weapons. But after the Myrt-peace-pact 600 years ago –where the alliance, the league and union ended the war- the weapon research was frowned upon. The people wanted peace and no more war, death or weapons.

Another reason why people didn´t like me, I also don´t like war or death but I know that to secure peace you have to prepare for war. Nobody starts a beating with the two meter high body builder, right?

I shuffled, starved as I was, to the ship´s canteen. A place where people with a special ability work, the ability to create awful tasting food from the best ingredients. I once saw how they managed to burn cornflakes. But unfortunately the bad food wasn´t just a problem of the Leviathan´s canteen, all canteens on board of all ships had the problem that the employees there had no idea what they did.

That was also the main reason why all members of the alliance fleet where in relative good shape but also always hungry and a bit aggressive and mentally unstable. I sometimes wondered if there´s a school that teaches how to cook epically bad.

With a tray in my hand I queued up in a fast moving row, fast moving because I was the only one in it, and after about twenty seconds I stood in front of the bored looking guy with a hairnet who smacked my tray with his ladle. A peculiar looking brown-yellow paste wobbled in front of me.

With a pretended grin I left the counter and walked over towards the tables. The canteen was empty but that wasn´t so unusual. It was about 1a.m. and the most crew member were in their beds. Except the captain who sat on one of the hovering white table tops that fitted perfect in the ships entire design.

I didn´t want to eat alone so I put my tray on the table next to powers and myself on the hovering bench which looked like the table just not so broad.  
"Ah, hi Isaac." Meant Powers poking the mush in front of him with a fork.

"What do we have here, Captain?" I replied as I also began to deal with the stuff on the tray.  
"Well, maybe thin strips of meat cooked in a sauce with exotic fruits… what would explain the yellow-brown color." He meant and put a fork loaded with the stuff in his mouth. I´ve never seen a face changed from normal to disgusted so fast.

"Okay. And how is it?" I asked a little amused.  
"If the stuff is just a bit worse it had weapons-grade."  
"Ha! Funny captain." I giggled.

"Yeah yeah… you just laugh because you haven´t tasted it. Come on, eat it!"  
"Uhm… No!"  
"That´s an order, Isaac" said Powers sternly.

I bit intimidated by Powers tone I also ate a bit of the so called food. I don´t want to try to explain how it tasted. It would be like trying to catch fog with bare hands. Pointless.  
"Oh my … Oh damn… oh… what… how…why?!" I stammered spitting it back on the tray. It was odd but the stuff I had spitted out looked much better than before. "Why did you do that to me Sly?"

"Because it´s damn funny! But mostly because Meternagel sleeps right now and no one was here to entertain me. You know I like… Oh, look over there." Powers pointed with his fork towards the entrance of the canteen where a pretty tired seeming alien Dudley Puppy stood.

"Seems like the Butcher is done and his victim is free again." I whispered while waving my hand so that Dudley could see us. I know that this was a bit unnecessary because we were the only one here but I thought it would show him that we appreciate his presence.

"Hey, guys" panted Dudley exhausted as he arrived at the table.  
"Hmm… Ryan did his worst, huh?" asked the captain grinning.  
"Yes" The dog flopped down beside me on the bench and laid his head on the table top.

"Well, that´s why I hired him. But don´t worry, you´ll be fighting fit in a few days again." Powers patted in his forceful, almost brutal, way on Dudley´s shoulder.  
"Thank you uhm… Magnum."

Powers began to beam like a little child as he heard his self chosen byname. "You´re welcome. See Isaac, it´s gaining acceptance."  
"Sly, that´s just a name you gave yourself. You can´t just invent nicknames for yourself." I protested.  
"I can. Why? Because I´m the god damn Sly Magnum Powers." He said ending his superior argumentation.

"But nicknames just happen. You cannot create them. I mean I cannot start calling myself 'Rockstar' or something…"  
"Yeah, you can´t. But as I mentioned, I am Sly Powers." He repeated while saying his name in a very heroic way. "And let us not forget that you already have a byname. Or am I wrong 'Death Professor'?"

"Oh come on! Not his again. You know how I hate this name."  
"Well, I think 'Death Professor' isn´t so bad." Dudley yawned with his head still on the table top.  
"I know. But Isaac is always so thin-skinned… Oh, by the way, you need a nickname too."  
"But I want a cool one!" Dudley meant raising his head up.

"Hmm… You came in a rocket. How about…"  
"I hate to interrupt your profound conversation…" I called sarcastically in. "…but Dudley what did the Doc said about your medical condition?"

"Doctor Ryan said that I´m fit as a fiddle and…" he began to stare with greedy eyes on the captain´s tray in front of him. "Do you want to eat that?"  
"Uhm… you can have it if you like." Powers pushed the food over to Dudley and I could see how he bit his tongue trying not to burst into laughter.

But his mood changed from amused to shocked because Dudley cleaned the tray and uttered a satisfied burp. "That´s good stuff!"  
"Sure… Sure that really everything is alright with you?" I asked exchanging stares full of disbelieve with the captain.

"Yep, I´m alright. Well, of course there is still this thing with my memory. I still have no idea what happened before I got up. Just have this one name in my mind… Kitty."  
"Kitty, huh?" I meant pensively.  
"Yeah… I have no idea who this is."  
"It´s a female name so a woman… or a transvestite with a pretty nice name." I meant scratching my chin.

"The transvestites I know had quite worse names." The captain commented my thesis baldly.  
After a short break in which Dudley and I stared at him shocked I asked "From where do you know transvestites?"

"Well there was this one night on a planet somewhere in alpha… I… I mean that was… I have to go." Powers ended his stammered explanation attempt and stood with a crimson red face up and left the canteen as fast as he could.  
"Okay, that was..."

"Weird?" completed Dudley.  
"Yes, kind of… Anyway, we need to think how we can give you your memory back. There are a whole lot of possible procedures that could help us with that."  
"Then, if we really have to start now, take the one that is less exhausting."

I nodded agreeing with him and put a little holographic projector on the table. "Concluding from the technical standards of your spaceships and the data of its onboard computer I have collected a selection of a few things that were normal for a culture of this time… Well, of course just of our culture but maybe you can recognize something." I pushed a little button on the cone shaped device that was just as big as a coin and a realistic looking 3D image of ancient device flashed up.

It was a little black box thing with a screen. I once read that people communicated over long distances with those things. I was lucky that I don´t have to carry such a bulky device around. I was glad that I had my implants and that´s all I need to communicate over long distances.  
"Does this give you any ideas?"

"Hmm… I know what this is. That´s a smartphone."  
"Smartphone?" I snorted disdainfully. "That thing doesn´t even have an AI that is able to execute the easiest logical thinking processes."  
"It´s just called like that." Replied Dudley annoyed.

"Yeah okay… But does this is bringing any memories to your mind?"  
"Nope… give me the next one."  
With the words "As you wish" I pushed the button once again and this time a picture of a gathering of old buildings became visible.

"This is a city." Said Dudley immediately as he saw it. "I used to life in a city."  
"That´s great!" I praised. "What was the name of the city."  
"P..Pe..Petropolis… Yes, Petropolis!"

"Good. What do you also know? And how is this connected with Kitty?"  
Dudley closed his eyes now and thought a bit harder. "She also lived there… yes… like… Keswick."  
"Okay, what´s Keswick? Another person? A drink? A disease? Have you been infected with Keswick?"

"I don´t think so… no disease… maybe a person but… oh come, on why is that so hard?" Again his head sunk onto the table top.  
"It is okay Dudley." I meant sympathetically. "That is like trying to remember a dream… even if it was real and has happened. I think the best thing now is that you go and catch some sleep. And then we try this tomorrow with less lethargic minds. What do you think?"

"That sounds like a plan." Whispered Dudley completely exhausted and almost asleep.  
"Hey, stay awake!" I ordered poking him with my fork. "If you go to sleep now the whole crew will surround you when you will wake up here tomorrow. Most of them still haven´t seen the 'alien'."

But these words didn´t received Dudley anymore. He was already far away in a world ruled by fantasy. Good for him but bad for me because I had to drag his sleeping body to his cabin. But, hey, somebody has to do this, right? As I lifted his body on my shoulder I was just hoping that dragging him around wouldn´t become a habit.

**-Well, seems like Dudley´s memory is returning slowly. But will he manage to get his whole memory back? And what happened in Petropolis after Dudley left? We´ll see in the next chapter. Stay tuned and tell me what you think. :D-**


End file.
